I just finished watching a movie, Blind Faith. It told a story of a young black man, Charlie, charged with the murder of a white youth in Van Cortland Park in the 50's. This picture moved me to redouble my efforts in asserting the Hypoism paradigm of addictions and all its implications in the face of the powerful, bigoted, prejudiced, and fearful people who would ignore it, censor it, hate it, and fear it. The parallels between the movie and my current battles were striking and mournful.

Charlie, whose father, Charles, was a cop in the Bronx, who aspired to becoming the first black police chief, was being tried for the capital murder of a white youth. Most of the film took place in the courtroom with effective flashbacks. Charlie was defended by his father's brother, John Williams, a well respected black defense lawyer. The judge was white as was the all male jury. In fact, the only blacks in the courtroom were Charlie and his family.

Half way through the trial, it was discovered that there had been another murder in Van Cortland park the same night. The victim was a black youth. John Williams and the boy's uncle, Eddie, a pot smoking musician living in Greenwich Village, visited the home of the dead black man's mother. Eddie recognized a picture of the murdered boy, David, from visits made by him and Charlie to some of Eddie's gigs and yanked John from the house. He realized the two black young men were lovers, making the picture of what happened that night clearer.

When John confronted Charlie on this, Charlie tearfully related the real story of the night of the murders, but refused to soil his family name by testifying to the story in court. The story unfolded that he and David were in the park saying goodbye after a weekend together. A mob of drunk white men saw them together and chased them, yelling, "queers." They caught David and killed him. Charlie ran, but was caught by one of the white men, wrestled him to the ground, and strangled his attacker. The mob preceded to beat him up just before the cops, alerted to the scuffle in the park by a black lady whose apartment overlooked the scene. Charlie was arrested by cops from his father's precinct after which he was brought to the station house where, without being given his rights, and superficially being represented by a white lawyer who happened to be present on his arrival, confessed. John went to Charlie's home and related the actual story to Charles who refused to believe it, "My boy is a real man. He's not that [a homosexual]. He's not that. I brought him up to be a decent man that people will respect." Charles subsequently refused to make his son share the real story in court, too embarrassed to save his son's life at the expense of admitting he was gay. Charles believed that if Charlie's homosexuality became known in the force, he would lose his position and maybe even his badge, "This badge is what makes me part of THEM."

At the trial, all the marauding white boys testified against Charlie. The lone black women testified on Charlie's behalf, saying she saw him being chased by some white boys in the park and probably killed one of them in self defense. The boy didn't testify for himself, and he was found guilty and sentenced to death. All appeals were in vain and the execution became imminent. Unbeknownst to Charles, three days before his electrocution, Charlie hanged himself in his jail cell, "My sickness tempted me and I hurt everybody's life. I'm so sorry about my illness,"[referring to his homosexuality], while simultaneously Charles was finally asking John to tell the judge the whole story and to save his son's life.

In the epilogue, John characterized Charlie's father with, "He never took pride in who he was, only in what he wanted to be."

The movie ended with John Williams deeply involved in the civil rights and gay liberation movements fifteen to twenty years later, long after many more blacks and homosexuals met similar lonely and disgusting fates at the hands of white and homophobic bigots and fearful acquiescent Uncle Toms and closet gays. It was John's blind faith, like mine, that the movie was named after.

The parallels to the embryonic addict rights movement of today with this film are striking, from the ignorance about the biological basis of homosexuality/addiction, to the prejudice against gays/addicts, the social and personal stigma, ostracism and self-ostracism, to the suicides, the fearful recovering Uncle Toms, gay and addict, who hide and join the other side, the punishment of gays/addicts who stand up for themselves and confront punitive and biased authorities, and the expectations of remorse from gays/addicts to avoid more punishment. The only thing that's missing, however, is the story of how addicts managed to put together a civil rights movement and become accepted for what they are. This hasn't happened yet.

This absence is, of course, what made the movie so touching and sad to me, as well as so motivating. Addicts are at least 50 years behind the blacks and 30-40 years behind the homosexuals in demanding acceptance, equality, and justice. As an aside, there is even a Small People of America uniting and advocating for dwarfs. I fear that addicts will be the last discriminated against group to come out of the closet of fear and shame to advocate for themselves, and for no reason other than ignorance, fear, and superstition.